I’ve worked with lots of sales teams to help drive performance.

The best teams, have created a performance culture;

Driven by fun and goodwill and;

Not fear based.

Let’s take a look at what some of your peers are doing to drive performance on their sales teams.

Let there be music . . .

When I worked for Dale Carnegie, I pumped kick ass music throughout the sales bull pen, first thing in the morning, before game time.

I wanted to create the feel of the locker room before the Superbowl.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of music on a team that wants to dominate!

Let there be pressure at home (the good kind)

I worked with a company that would send information home to the sales rep’s significant other with regard to their President’s Club destination.

The theory behind this was if they could get buy in on the home front (since they were allowed to attend as well), the reps could get a little extra support, and even a gentle nudge!

A sales rep shared a funny story of how he arrived home from work early one day only to get a lecture from his wife on how they’ll never get on the company cruise that way.

Let there be public acknowledgment!

Carmine Napolitano from Cintas publicly acknowledges his performers on LinkedIn.

The pictures really seem to capture both the joy of the top performing rep as well as Carmine’s gratitude for a job well done!

Just check out these pictures and you can be the judge!

Here are a few other ways they are publicly acknowledging their teams at Cintas.

Here’s an example from the Paychex team;

This approach has an added benefit in that it also becomes an awesome recruiting magnet.

How?

There are going to be people in your network who get drawn to a leader who acknowledges their team.

The best part . . .

It costs you NOTHING to do!

“Another $10,000 in the house!”

When I worked for Dale Carnegie, I made it a policy that we would celebrate ALL wins publicly!

So whenever a rep closed a deal, I’d email the sales team with something like this;

“Another $10,000 in the house compliments of Carmen Rodriguez. Please join me in congratulating Carmen for a job well done!”

This approach also supplied a dual benefit.

First, it reminded my reps that they were appreciated.

Time Out: There was this one time where one of my reps closed a major deal and received a commission check north of $100,000. I dropped the ball and forgot to send the email out to the team and the rep (now $100,000 richer) was upset (and rightly so) that I forgot to publicly acknowledge his awesome contribution.

Proof positive that money is important but its far from the only thing in motivating a team!

The second benefit of sending out emails like this is that it drives competition.

I know this first hand because after the congratulatory responses were sent to the person being acknowledged, the trash talk would start from their teammates.

Things like “Savor the flavor Carmen because I’m taking the top spot this week”.

Let there be beer and food!

When I led the New Jersey region for Jani-King, the entire office would celebrate with a “Beer Friday” when we hit our revenue targets.

Word of Caution: I never allowed my reps to have more than a beer or two.

Whenever a new sales rep made their first sale, I would take them out to Ruth’s Chris to celebrate.

Let there be ball breaking!

Part of the fun of being in sales is the good spirited ball breaking we get from our teammates.

I know of a company where the lowest producing sales rep (that week) had to take everyone’s coffee order, and run to the break room to get it for everyone in the sales meeting.

One of my clients shared a story of how they had a brand new toilet seat and framed the picture of the lowest producing rep each month.

These things weren’t done in a malicious way . . .

It was all fun, games and a little (maybe a lot) of ball breaking.

Your turn . . .

Please leave a comment and let us know how you and your team drive a performance culture in your sales organization.

I help sales reps, sales leaders and business owners sell more! To learn about my onsite sales training programs, please click HERE. To learn about my sales kick-offs and speaking engagements, please click HERE.